Subjects of Humanity
by JustAnotherPseudonym
Summary: Humanity. Who gets the privilege of defining it? Kim and Shego are forced into finding out. AUKIGO. Dark Fic
1. A Warrior of Old

**DISCLAIMER:** The characters from the Kim Possible series are owned by Disney. No profit is being made.

**SUMMARY:** Humanity. Who gets the privilege of defining it?

**PAIRING:** Kim/Shego So you've been properly warned.

**RATING:** M for language, sexual content and violence

**A Warrior of Old**

Kim Possible felt like she was a warrior of old. She had a newfound affinity for those soldiers who rushed into battle with nothing but a short sword and the faith in the Gods as company. For the umpteenth time she reminded herself that she wasn't crazy and that it was indeed possible for her to do anything. It was all she could tell herself as she walked deeper into the trap that had been especially designed with her in mind, her and what seemed a few thousand others.

She wasn't meant to survive this, and despite her conviction to remain optimistic she knew that she probably would end up dead. There were limitations in life that even she had to accept, and as someone who never ran away from anything she certainly wasn't going to let death scare her off. She didn't really have a choice in the matter this time. Although, she thought to herself, it wasn't like she had a lot of choices the previous times either.

But, this one stood out above the others, because she knew the moment that she arrived that she had already been beaten. There was no denying that at this point. Her previous convictions had been laid to rest and she had been forced to change into the person she had never imagined she could ever become.

A small part of her had always believed that since she was Kim Possible and since she did tend to save the world, that in a small way she was just a little bit better than the ordinary Joe's of the world that spent most of their time in selfish pursuits. It was a part of her that she hadn't fully acknowledged until she was dumped into the hell that now surrounded her, but it existed and she had only just begun to make her peace with it. Just like she had just begun to make her peace with the fact that she wasn't the person she had believed herself to be. She was more complicated than a teenage heroine who went around the world risking her life to save the innocents, while still making time for the normal trivial pursuits of life.

She tried to imagine what her family would make of her now if they somehow could see her with her bloody weapon in one hand and a small shield in the other, blood covering a fair portion of her body, and a bracelet made of human bone wrapped around her ankle denoting her rank in the demented game she had been thrown into.

Briefly, she lost herself in the memories of the day she was welcomed into this different world. She remembered her stubborn defiance and righteous words. "This is wrong," she had yelled at her invisible captors. "You won't get away with this."

So far, Kim shook her head ruefully, they had gotten away with everything. No one was coming to save her. No one probably even suspected that she was alive at all. The only way she knew she could get out was to let someone kill her or to take her own life, but that meant that she would kill Shego and she just wasn't ready or willing to do that.

Kim tightened her hold on her sword and took in a deep breath. She looked carefully around, knowing that her target was near. She had clearly heard his approach and was thankful that once again her opponent was weaker than she.

A wild battle yell was let out into the silence of the area Kim had been hiding. Her opponent jumped out at her with his sword raised, aimed straight at her heart. She quickly sidestepped his body, and with one swift motion cut off his head. With an odd sort of fascination she watched the head roll to its final stop, knowing that like the others her victim would always remain to her a nameless face that like the others were intent on seeing her dead.

Kim re-sheathed her sword and waited until the emotionless voice of her captor let her know that it was okay for her to leave the battlefield and return to her dorm.

**3 Years Ago**

It had been a normal fight, at least for them. Dr. Drakken had invented yet another devise that he had convinced himself would enable him to take over the world, and yet again his plans were being foiled by Kim Possible and her boyfriend Ron Stoppable. Shego and Kim were trading blows while Ron wrestled for a remote control with Dr. Drakken.

Shego threw a plasma bolt at Kim, which Kim easily dodged. They traded barbs and continued to battle each other until Ron announced his triumph at gaining control of the remote. Drakken ordered a retreat and Shego jumped to comply.

The whole scene was almost mundane really, since it had become so ordinary. It was like a regular scheduled double date sure to occur every other week or so. It gave them each a chance to catch up and fall into a comfortable familiarity of Good versus Evil.

None of them could have ever suspected that this time would be different. Everything had already gone according to previous well-rehearsed script, but sometimes the unexpected does happen. Kim dove for the hovercraft Shego and Drakken were trying to make their escape on. She caught hold of Shego's foot, forcing the hovercraft to rock uncontrollable.

Kim pulled at Shego's foot and they both fell just as Drakken put on the throttle thinking he was clear to make one of his many escapes. During the fall, they were each certain that they were tumbling to their deaths. Nothing was below them to cushion their fall except a deep ravine. And to the complete amazement of the world, that was the end of Kim Possible and her archrival Shego. They had died together, and no one was too dense to grasp the irony of the circumstance.

Kim's family held a closed-casket funeral since her body had been so completely mangled upon her landing. They had requested that only family and close friend's attend the funeral, but agreed to have it televised so that each person that wished to say their final farewells to Kim Possible could do so. The world went into a period of mourning; flags in several countries were flown at half-mast for months.

Shego's death wasn't quite as celebrated. Her brother's claimed her body and held a small service for their lost sister. None of them could have guessed that their super-powered sibling would ever die in such a simple fashion. They thought that Shego's end would involve rockets and fireworks, drama and intrigue. They could never have guessed that all it took to take their sister from the world was a simple fall.

Both Kim Possible's and Shego's body were caste down to the earth and time didn't even bother to stand still. Petty wars still continued and every disrespectful opportunist still tried to take over the world—somehow thinking that it would be an easier quest since Kim Possible was dead. The only things that did change were small changes that the world hardly even took notice of.

Dr. Drakken retired from his evil pursuits, proving once and for all that he had a heart somewhere under all that blue skin. Ron Stoppable also retired, knowing that he would be unable to maintain his desire to defend a world that Kim Possible wasn't in anymore. Kim's brothers thought about taking up where their sister had left off, but understandably their parents wouldn't allow them to.

What not one single person noticed—what no one could have noticed—was that when Kim Possible and Shego were buried it was only their coffins that went into the ground and not their bodies. Each body had been stolen from the morgues—a clone-like mannequin left in their place. The bodies were submerged into a liquid gel that over a period of only a few hours infused life back into where it had previously been stripped away.

Shego had been the first to awake. She slowly stretched out her aching limbs, not recognizing where she was and unable to remember anything that had happened past her fatal fall with the teenage superhero. She thought that she might remember dying, but knew that was impossible since she was now obviously alive.

She looked over to her right and saw Kim's nude body lying on a bed next to hers. She reached out and shook Kim's shoulder. "Kimmie?" Shego whispered. "Kimmie, wake up."

Kim reluctantly stirred and forced her eyes to open. "What….where?"

Before Shego could even begin to guess at an answer to Kim's jumbled question a screen slowly lowered down the wall across from them. A shadowed image filled it. "Let me explain," a cold robotic voice took over the room. "You may call me Animatus. I have brought you both back to life to take part in my study on humanity."

"That's impossible!" Shego yelled at the cloaked figure.

"Improbable maybe, Shego, but not impossible," the voice calmly replied. "I have developed a method in which I can infuse life into dead tissue, dead cells, dead blood, death itself. It has been my life's work."

"You need to find new work," Shego snappily replied.

"Like I said, you are each now part of my research on humanity. I wish to understand that which is denied me, and I have chosen the both of you to participate."

"You can't," Kim whispered.

"I have. Your part in the study is simple: you must survive. I advise you to feel along the pulse of your left wrist and take notice of a small object imbedded under your skin. If your pulse happens to stop for any reason, the other dies."

"This is wrong!" Kim's voice had gained strength. "You won't get away with this!"

"And who will stop me, Kim Possible? Everyone thinks the both of you are dead."

"I'll stop you, you bastard," Shego stood up and then advanced towards the screen.

"Doubtful," the shadow coolly replied. "Momentarily a door will open and you will go to the room I have assigned you both. You will receive further instruction before your entry into the first level tests." The screen switched off and moved back up into its hiding place on the wall. A soft hissing sound filled the room and a hallway was revealed.

"We've got to get out of here, Princess," Shego said as she slowly moved towards the newly revealed passageway. This whole situation was beyond making her nervous and although a part of her wanted to deny the possibility, she was relatively sure that Animatus had somehow raised them from the dead. This was way worse than anything Dr. Drakken had ever managed to come up with.

"Do you even know where we are?" Kim looked around, hoping that she would find something to cover her body up with. Shego took no notice of her own nudity, but Kim didn't have the ability to ignore her lack of clothing or Shego's either for that matter.

"I don't know any more than you do," Shego stopped herself from unleashing her frustration on Kim. She was smart enough to realize that the two of them would have to work together in order to survive whatever Animatus had planned for them. In the past, they had been put in situations in which they needed to collaborate and had been successful in every adventure. Both of them, now, could easily admit that they worked well together and if circumstances had been different than they might have even become close friends.

Giving up on trying to find something that would cover up her nudity, Kim got up off the bed she had been placed in and then walked over to Shego. They both stared at the open hallway in front of them, each knowing that they didn't have much choice but to go down it. The room they had awoken in held nothing but the two beds and a small camera that recorded all their words and actions.

Kim took the first step out into the hallway, intent on doing her best to ignore the effects the cold air was having on her nude body. Shego stepped in behind her and together they carefully walked down the only route that was available to them.

"Do you think we really died, Shego?" Kim couldn't help but eventually ask once the adrenaline in her body stopped pumping so hard through her veins as she slowly realized that no one and nothing was going to jump out and attack them. They were completely alone in whatever place Animatus had decided to store them in after their resurrection.

"What's the last thing you remember, Kimmie?" Shego stopped walking, part of her hoping that Kim would remember things differently than she did. For all the bravado that she normally immersed herself in, she had never wanted to die, and she certainly never wanted to be responsible for Kim's death.

"I remember falling," Kim even remembered her frantic screams as she tried to reach out for something, anything to stop her rapid fall towards the dark ravine below. But, there had been nothing to grab onto. The only thing, only person close enough to her was Shego, and so she had grabbed onto her enemy perversely glad that she wasn't going to die alone. "I remember a blinding flash of pain, but…" Kim sighed. "I don't remember anything else."

"Yeah," Shego started walking again, "that's all I remember, too."

They continued walking in silence until they reached the end of the hallway. In front of them was a plain white metal door with a plaque that read: "Test Subjects Kim P. and Shego (enhanced)".

"What do you suppose the 'enhanced' means?" Kim gently ran her hand over the engraved plaque, the metal cool to her touch.

"You know these mad scientist types, Princess. He probably did something to us while he was…" Shego wasn't quite sure what to call what had been done to them. "Let's just go in," she abruptly changed the subject unwilling to let loose the slew of emotions that were running around within her.

Kim lowered her hand to the door knob and was unsurprised when it twisted easily in her hand. She pushed open the door, even less surprised that they were lead to into a room that for all intents and purposes didn't much differ from the dorm room Kim had taken residence in at Middleton University. The only difference was that this room contained a small kitchen and lacked any windows.

"Well," Kim stepped into the room, "it's not the Hilton."

"Kimmie," Shego stepped in behind the shorter woman, "it's not even the Holiday Inn."

They closed the door behind them, and once they did they heard the soft hum of an engine as their room was quite literally rotating to the left. It wasn't an abrupt shift, designed specifically to not dislodge any of the room's contents. It was only a transition from one position to the next.

"You will be given twenty-four hours to rest," Animatus's voice was heard over the hissing of the air pumps. "After that time, your trial will begin."

**Present**

Kim was debriefed in the same way she had been every time before. The blood was removed from her body, her weapons were taken away, she was given clothes to replace the ones that had so recently been ruined, and another small bone chip was added to her bracelet. She was asked all the standard questions: What was she thinking during the trial, what did she feel when she slaughtered another person, how much longer did she want to survive.

Then, as a cruel reminder of all that she had done, her warden gave her the most recent statistics available. "You have been personally responsible for over four-hundred and fifty deaths, Kim Possible. As a reward for your success, Shego will not be terminated."

The door releasing her back into the maze of hallways that would lead to the room she shared with Shego opened. She walked out into the hallway where Shego, as usual met her after a trial's completion. Shego wrapped an arm around Kim's waist and kissed her softly on the forehead. "Let's go back home, Princess" she whispered.

"Tomorrow's your turn," Kim callously reminded the woman who held her. She had not yet managed to completely subdue the beast that now took over the moment she was released onto the battlefield. It was getting harder each time to tame the angry monster that had long ago acquired the taste for blood, but so far she had managed and most of her success she owed to the woman who stood with her.

Shego gave a slight nod, well aware that her companion hadn't completely calmed down from the trial she had just been put through. This had, perhaps, become the worst part of Shego's life. It disgusted her to see what Kim Possible had been forced into becoming, and she cursed herself for being unable to stop it.

Shego, at one time, had ignorantly believed that nothing would ever change the fundamental parts that compiled into Kim Possible's identity. She had believed that Kim was too stubborn to change, but she quickly realized that the circumstances they had been thrown into could and would change anyone. It had irrevocably changed the both of them and continued to do so in way neither of them were completely willing to admit.

With her arm still wrapped around Kim's waist, Shego led them back to their room. She wasn't at all surprised when Kim slammed her against the door as soon as she had managed to close it. Kim's lips roughly took possession of Shego's flesh. She nipped at Shego's neck as her hands tore away the meager clothing that Shego had been forced to wear.

Soon, Kim's fingers found purchase into Shego's inner core and she thrust wildly in and out, giving into the beast's call for one last hoorah before it was buried once more. Shego wrapped her legs around Kim, knowing that Kim could easily support her weight. She closed her eyes and dug her fingernails deep into Kim's back. She released a small yelp from the pain of Kim's thrusting hand, but soon after was lost in the pleasure that always managed to overwhelm her senses.

Kim's thrusting only stopped once the beast was satisfied. She carried Shego to their joined beds and laid the taller woman gently onto their surface. Shego unwrapped her body from around Kim's and opened her arms so that the younger woman could climb into her embrace.

Kim laid her head against Shego's breast, completely exhausted now that the beast had left her. Tears welled up in her eyes and then slowly made a trek down her cheeks and onto Shego's chest. She wanted to apologize for what she had just done, the guilt finally settling in, but she knew Shego would dismiss all her apologies like she had so many times before.

So, they held each other in silence knowing that when they woke up the nightmare they were in wouldn't yet have ended. They had convinced themselves that it would never end, no matter how many trials they succeeded in. So, they had learned to take these moments of silence and hold tightly onto them so that surviving wasn't a death sentence.

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**A/N: Let me know what you think. I'm interested in hearing from you, really.**


	2. The Faithful Believer

**RATED:** **M for language, violence, and sexual content. Please heed this warning. **

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for all the reviews. They are very much appreciated. I enjoy reading what you have to say.**

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**THE FAITHFUL BELIEVER**

Shego could hear the desperate screams coming from the distance. She began running faster towards the sound, hoping with everything that was within her that she would be successful and stop whatever horrendous scenario was taking place just outside her field of vision. The screams came again, and again Shego did her best to run just a bit faster knowing that if she wasn't fast enough then she would fail and many would die.

This wasn't like the previous life she had led, where she had the luxury of escaping after defeat knowing that another battle would soon be coming her way. This wasn't like fighting Kimmie during one of Drakken's vies for world power. This didn't fill Shego with the same pleasurable rush of adrenaline that fighting the teenage superhero had given her.

Kim had never made Shego feel weak or powerless. She had never made any special effort to exploit Shego's past. Kim Possible would never have put Shego into an artificially manufactured jungle, and force her to save a small child from the very near jaws of death.

Her legs began to burn from the exertion and despite her being in the best shape she had ever been in, the mere distance she was forced to run was causing strain on her body, but she couldn't slow down. She started to slowly count the seconds, regulating her breathing with the each second's passing. One: Breath in. Two: Breath out. Three: Breath in.

Determinedly, Shego keep up her pace until she was faced with the child who was screaming for his own life. She dove towards the child's tormentor and they both slammed into the ground. When she regained her footing, she wasn't surprised to see that the child's captor was a replica of her.

This was the third time she had been put through a trial where she discovered that the enemy she was to face was herself. At first, she had believed it was some kind of trick or illusion that both she and Kim had been forced to survive before, but as she looked into the eyes looking back at her she could tell that the clones were doing their best to survive just like she was. They were even just as surprised to see her as she was to see them.

As matter of fact, when Shego took the time to really think about it, she couldn't say for certain that she wasn't the clone instead of the original reanimated body. She couldn't be sure that the person she faced off now wasn't living in another room with another Kim Possible. There was no way she could even espouse that she was better than her enemy because she had come to save the child while her likeness had come to destroy him. She didn't know what trials the other Shegos had been put through. She had no idea what they had experienced before they were forced into facing off with her.

"Let's get this over with," Shego lit up her plasma and soon her entire body was covered in the green heated pulse of energy.

"Don't you know what this child is?" Her opponent yelled. "Don't you know what it's done?"

Shego slowly shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't die…"

"It doesn't matter," Shego coldly interrupted.

Her opponent nodded as she lit up her hands with her own plasma. They jumped towards each other, attacking their own weaknesses hoping to gain advantage. Their concentration was solely on the fight between them, each knowing that this had to be a fight to the death. That's how all fights in this hellhole were forced to end.

Shego caught her opponent square in the chest with a roundhouse kick and watched as her twin flew through the air and into one of the artificial trees. She followed her opponent and grabbed the woman by the neck with her lighted hands, not stopping to think before she crushed her enemy's windpipe.

She let the dead body fall from her strong grasp and turned to the child she had just been forced to save. The little boy had watched the fight with fascination covering his small innocent face. His wide green eyes turned to Shego and he curiously asked her, "Are you my new mommy?"

"No," Shego hoarsely replied, "I don't think so, kid."

"But you killed my old mommy."

Kim had once said that she had seen a child during one of her trials that looked a lot like Shego. Kim hadn't been given orders to talk to the child, but Kim had said that she was positive he was Shego's son. Although, she couldn't quite explain how that was possible.

"Sorry, kid," Shego walked past the child towards the direction she had come from. "I wasn't told to take you with me." She walked away from the small boy and didn't even bother to turn around when she heard him crying as he asked his other mommy to come back to life and that he was sorry.

Shego had finished her trial as it had been assigned. That meant that Kim and the community they lived in would survive. She couldn't bring herself to care, couldn't afford to care about what would happen to the boy that was most likely biologically her son.

**3 YEARS AGO**

They had been given twenty-four hours to rest, but neither of them could settle their agitated body nor mind enough to even begin to rest. They had just risen from the dead. They were stuck in this too sterile place with some deranged psychopath in charge of their fate, and it seemed that there was no current means for escape.

Shego had tried to use her plasma to break through the walls, and had been horribly unsuccessful. The room was plasma proof. Together, they had gone over every square inch of space, hoping to find something of use but there had been nothing. The door was locked and they were stuck waiting for Animatus's voice or shadowed body to appear on some device and let them know what was going on.

So, they each sat on their own bed looking at the Spartan space around them. "How long do you think we've been dead?" Kim asked as casually as she could, finally giving into her need to talk about the highly disturbing reality they had been put into.

"What makes you think I know anymore than you do, Princess?" Shego harshly replied.

"Well, have you ever heard of this Animatus guy before?"

"Have you?" Shego shot back, unwilling to hold back her irritation any longer. Kim had always been an acceptable outlet to her emotions before, and Shego could see no reason to change that because they had been kidnapped by some loon who wanted to experiment on them.

"No," Kim steadily replied, "I haven't." She had long since become used to Shego's biting tongue and quickness to anger. She knew better than to lose her own temper.

"Yeah well, I haven't either."

"Do you think we're the only ones?"

"Look Kimmie," Shego sprung up from her bed to take place right in front of the sitting Kim, "I've already told you that I don't know any more than you. Stop asking your stupid questions."

"My stupid questions," Kim slowly began to stand, "are the only things that are keeping me sane right now. In case you haven't clued into it yet, Shego, we've just been brought back from being dead and we're stuck in who knows where with some freak who wants to probably do something that will just kill us again." Kim's voice had progressively gotten louder. "And I miss my family, and Ron and Wade and all my friends and right now the only thing I've got is you and my stupid questions!"

Shego had never seen Kim act so completely unhinged before. Maybe, Shego wondered, when Animatus brought Kim back he didn't do it correctly, and the last thing she wanted to deal with was an emotionally unstable Kim. Shego just wasn't equipped to handle that. "Calm down, Kimmie. We'll get through this."

"How?" Kim managed to voice the small plea through the lump that was building in her throat. "We're not even supposed to be alive."

Despite risking her life on a regular basis, Kim had never truly contemplated the possibility of death. Perhaps, that was a side effect of her starting out her hero business at such a young age. Like most other children, she was infected with an invincibility complex that had been her constant companion through her teenage years. Now, at nineteen years old, not having truly accepted death as an imminent inevitability from the choices of her life, she was wholly unprepared for her current reality.

This Animatus character didn't 'put' Kim back incorrectly, like Shego might have wished a possibility. Kim had simply been forced into realizing a cold truth that all her "Anything is possible for a Possible" philosophy couldn't quite ease away.

"Well Kimmie, no one is supposed to live forever." Shego realized that as an offering for comfort her statement was pathetic at best, but she didn't have a lot of experience in comforting others. She normally walked away from other people's pain and emotions. It made life simpler for her.

"Yeah well, I would have at least liked to turn twenty before I died." Kim turned away from her rival, mentally chastising herself for letting her fear get such a strong hold on her. She knew she was better than this panicky little girl she was acting like. She needed to take charge and find a solution to her problem. She would find a way to get back to her family and to her life.

"Kim Possible and Shego, it is time to introduce you to your new home," Animatus's voice came from various speakers around the room. "You have been taken to my research facility especially designed for the trials you will face. Your room is only one of many. You are now part of a community of humans who have been reanimated and specifically chosen to partake in my research." The voice coldly informed them. "Your first trial is to introduce yourselves to the other humans and to take control of the community from the current leaders. You may use any means necessary to obtain your goal. You have one week. If at the end of that week you have failed to reach your goal then there will be dire consequences."

"I'm not playing a part in any of your research!" Shego yelled, not quite sure in which direction she should focus her anger.

"I won't either," Kim added. "Experimenting on human beings is wrong."

"You have no choice," Animatus unemotionally replied.

"There's always a choice," Kim answered.

There was a long period of silence that was eventually brutally interrupted by the sounds of the room shifting again. Once the room stopped moving, the door's locking mechanism sounded and then the small portal slowly swung open. Neither Kim nor Shego were prepared to face the horde of robotic beings that entered. They were quickly overcome and then forced into unconsciousness.

Their bodies were taken into a room much like the cold barren room they had first awoken in. There were two beds, each of which now held Shego's and Kim's body strapped down by the ankles, torso, wrists, and neck. Over each of them stood two of the robotic beings that had overpowered them, their orange emotionless eyes looking down at the women simply waiting for their next order.

Kim's eyes began to flutter open, and as soon as her brain began to become aware of where she was and what was standing above her she started to violently pull against her restraints. Quickly, she realized that her efforts were futile. She couldn't break through whatever kind of metal held her in place. She wasn't strong enough.

"You were correct, Kim Possible, when you said that 'there's always a choice'." Animatus's voice came this time from one of the robots standing above the former heroine. "What you have failed to mention is that there is also always a consequence."

Kim's bed slowly began rolling into a vertical position. Once her vision had adjusted to the new position, Kim's eyes widened when she saw Shego lying on the other bed. One of the robots standing over Shego put a metal prod against the woman's exposed waist, sending a shot of electricity through the super-powered woman's body. Shego jolted awake with a loud scream tearing through her throat.

"What price are you willing to pay for your defiance?" Animatus's voice now came from one of the robots standing over Shego.

"We're already dead!" Shego shouted as the pain began to subside. "What difference does it make?"

Unexpectedly, the robot standing on Kim's right side reached out and punched a hole directly into Kim's midsection. Kim unleashed a horrid scream of pain as the robot began twisting its metallic hand on the insides of Kim's body. The screams continued until the shock unleashed on Kim's body finally took its toll and she died.

Shego couldn't voice any of the many responses she wanted to let loose onto Animatus. All she could do was look upon the gruesome scene that was in front her.

"Death means nothing to me," the robot that had punched through Kim's torso now spoke as Animatus. "I find that it means much more to humans. How many times are you willing to watch her die, Shego?"

Shego had already died with Kim once, and was unwilling to admit to the emotions that brought upon her now. Even knowing that each time Kim died, Animatus would bring her back, Shego knew she couldn't watch this vile display more than once. She had already understood that it was near impossible to desensitize oneself from the death of a loved one.

"We'll go along with you," Shego whispered out her defeat. "I'll make sure Kim understands."

The restraints holding Shego's body released with a soft hiss. Immediately, she was on her feet and standing over Kim's mutilated corpse. As she looked over the younger woman's body she suddenly remembered something Animatus had told them before. "Why aren't I dead?" She asked the nearest robot. "You told us that if one of our pulses stops than the other's would as well."

She was suddenly proud of her herself for discovering that Animatus had lied to them. She was proud that she could take away some of the power that he held.

"I deactivated them when you were brought here," the robot Shego had asked responded. "Once Kim Possible has completed reanimation they will activate again."

The restraints holding Kim's body up were then released. Shego easily caught the smaller body. She cradled Kim's corpse, doing her best to not pay any attention to the blood that rolled off of Kim's body down onto her own.

"My robots will lead you to the reanimation chamber."

Shego nodded, and then followed one of the robots as it hurried out in front of her.

**PRESENT DAY**

"May I ask something Animatus?" Shego had made it back to her debriefing chamber, and now sat calmly waiting to be released back to her living quarters.

"You are curious about the boy," Animatus as usual did not appear in any physical form. As always, he was represented through an emotionless voice streaming through some well-placed speaker. "You wish to know more about him."

Shego nodded. "I was told I could never conceive children. It was a side-effect from the comet."

"You did not give birth to him," Animatus gave answer to Shego's unvoiced question. "I, however, did make him from your DNA."

"Is he um…" Shego difficultly swallowed. "Is he evil?"

"Your question is invalid, Shego. Like with you, there are many representations of his form."

After her first trial with Kim, Shego had ceased trying to find meaning behind the tests Animatus ran. She didn't want to put her energies into trying to figure out what plans Animatus had for his subjects. What he wanted didn't really matter since her only concern was making sure that Kim and she survived. The fact that Animatus had made a child from her DNA changed nothing for her.

She was almost certain, that if Animatus had made a child from her DNA then he probably made one from Kim's as well. Shego didn't know how many subjects had been forced into being part of Animatus's research, and once again, she didn't really care to know. All she cared for now, was to finalize this last trial she had been forced through and then to go seek out and inform Kim as to what she had just learned.

The introduction of children into the trials meant that once again, Animatus was changing something in his research. They would be forced to face different obstacles within different sets of circumstances. Perhaps, Kim would finally be given permission to take off the horrendous ankle bracelet made of human bone she was forced to wear as some sort of deranged medal honoring her proficiency in handing out death.

Shego was released from her debriefing, and when she did find Kim the younger woman was helping some of the children from within their community with their reading lessons. She held one girl in her arms and was going over the alphabet with the four year old.

"I can't remember where 'J' goes," the girl complained as she brought a green colored 'J' made of wood to her lips.

"Well, let's go over it one more time," Kim pointed at the letters that were lying in front of them on the table they were sitting at.

The girl began saying the letters Kim pointed at, "…I, J, K, L…"

"Wait, wait," Kim interrupted the child, "what was that you just said?"

The girl blinked wide brown eyes questioningly at her tutor, "I, J, K…"

"You just said it, sweetie," Kim smiled at the young girl.

"Oh," the child drew out the word, "I said it but I couldn't hear it."

Kim chuckled softly as the girl put the wooden "J" between the "I" and "K". She then stood up with the girl in her arms. She ran her hand through the girl's thick black hair, set her back down, and then turned her attention to Shego.

"You made it through," Kim whispered.

"No other choice but to, Kimmie." Shego answered as the shorter woman wrapped strong arms around her waist.

Instead of waiting for Shego to emerge from the debriefing chambers, Kim had taken to spending her time with the community instead. She let her responsibilities take up the space in her mind that would otherwise be full with worry for Shego.

Together, they walked away from the community living areas and went back to their own room. Once there, Kim prepared a bath for Shego and a small meal. She gave Shego space and time to relax and calm from the trial Animatus had just dealt out.

Shego emerged from their bathing area wearing one of the fresh community uniforms: a simple pair of black leather boots with black slacks, a black belt with a square silver buckle, and a crimson t-shirt tucked into the slacks. She sat across from Kim at their small dining table and then picked up a fresh piece of melon. "I saw the boy," Shego announced right before putting the melon in her mouth.

Kim needed no explanation as to who 'the boy' was. "Were you forced to harm him?" She didn't hesitate to ask.

This was the way Shego preferred them to deal with the trials she went through. She wanted them to discuss it as succinctly as possible and then to just move on from it like it had hardly even happened. "No. This time I was pitted against a clone. She was weaker."

"And the boy?"

"She was his mother and I…he's made from my DNA. I left him in the battlefield."

Kim nodded. "Do you want me to go back to the community living area to give you some time alone?"

"No," Shego stood up. She moved around the table and then sat on the floor in front of Kim. She laid her head down on Kim's lap, "Stay?"

"Of course." Kim ran her fingers through Shego's dark hair. She waited until her companion was asleep until she carefully stood up. She then cradled Shego in her arms and placed the sleeping woman on their bed. She lay down as well and didn't hesitate to wrap her arms around Shego.

As she lay awake, she couldn't help but think about how much everything had changed, and now things would be changing once again with the new trials Animatus was coming up with. Not that many words had been exchanged, but not many needed to be. Kim had understood that the fact that Shego was allowed to interact with a biological son that that meant Animatus was once again changing the trials.

Briefly, Kim wondered what a little boy Shego would look like and act like. She wondered if Shego ever wanted to be a mother. For some reason, Kim thought that Shego would make a very good mother. She thought that both of them, together, would make good parents if they could ever be given the chance.

But, none of that really mattered while they were under Animatus's control. They couldn't plan their own lives or try to make plans for the future. They didn't have the luxury of making a future for themselves since the future had already been made for them. But still Kim faithfully believed that if they ever had the chance to get away from Animatus that they could create a beautiful family and a wonderful life, and perversely she had Animatus to thank for giving her the chance to realize that.


	3. The Seeker of Freedom

**Author's Note: I wish to sincerely thank all of you who have given me your thoughts and opinions. I cherish everyone's comments and thank you for your patience.**

**Disclaimers: I don't own Kim Possible. Also, please keep in mind that there is (M)ature content herein. This includes violence, explicit language and sexual content.**

**THE SEEKER OF FREEDOM**

Kim often wondered what her life would be like if she had lived. She tried to picture herself as the hero she had once been, but with each day that picture faded more and more. She sometimes wondered if she had ever stopped to think about the life she had undertaken. She blamed a lot of her actions on her youth, even though she knew that at twenty-two years old she still was plenty young, at least physically young.

In the last few years, she had mentally aged more than she ever thought a single person could manage. She wasn't the same person she had been when she awoke under Animatus's control. She wasn't even sure that she would want to ever be that person again. She was proud of who she had become, although not necessarily proud of the conditions in which she had been forced to face during her evolution. She would never be proud of all the things she had done, but she was still learning to live with her choices and the future consequences of her actions.

"Have you forgotten how to boil water again?" Timothy, one of the older community members, asked a daydreaming Kim.

Kim looked at the pot of water in front of her. "Yeah," she coyly smiled, "how do you do that again?"

"Well usually," Timothy reached over and turned the dial on the stove, "you need to turn on the burner to create heat first."

"I always forget that part," Kim playfully replied.

Timothy gently moved Kim away from the stove. "You look like you were having some very deep thoughts."

Kim moved across the kitchen and then jumped up and sat down on one of the countertops. "Do you ever think about who you were before you died?"

"I think we all do at some point or another, Kim." Timothy walked up to Kim and then put his hand on her knee. "We all have the joys and sorrows inside of us that we are unable to forget."

"Sometimes," Kim scratched at the back of her left wrist where her chip had been inserted, "I wish I couldn't remember who I was before."

"I can't say that I'm not guilty of wishing the same at times," Timothy's hand slid off of Kim's knee and he turned back to the heating water. "I wasn't a nice person before, and did things that still give me nightmares."

"I wasn't a bad person," Kim replied. "Actually, I was a pretty good person. Almost unrealistically good, maybe."

"And you still want to forget who you were." Timothy kept his focus on the water. "It's natural, Kim."

"I miss my family," Kim hurried to say, "and my friends and well…there's a lot about that life that I miss but there's parts of me that still don't want to remember it."

"I'm sure there are parts of you that don't want to remember this life either, Kim." Timothy once against turned away from the stove.

Before Kim could voice any more of her meandering wonderings about her past life versus her current one, they were interrupted by the other cooks that were assigned to make the evening meal. Kim was supposed to do the prep work, but had distracted herself and had only managed to put water in a pot. She wasn't even quite sure if she was even supposed to do that.

Quickly, the cooks ushered her and Timothy out of their kitchen and vowed to never let either one of them near any cooking implements ever again, and swore that this time they would stick to their word. Despite all the changes she had gone through over the last three years, Kim still hadn't quite figured out how to cook anything completely palatable.

No one sincerely believed that Kim was unable to grasp the simple concepts involved with meal preparation, but since she had no real desire to learn no one had the particular want to teach her. Everyone had lived long enough in the community to recognize that each community member had her or his strengths and weaknesses when it came to performing communal tasks.

No one even truly expected Kim to do any of the community chores since she was so busy being brought to the battlefield for Animatus's trials. Kim and Shego were the leaders of the community. They were the only ones that entered the battlefield and performed tasks that no other community member had yet been brave enough to ask the details of.

They all knew that the trials were most likely more horrendous than their imaginations could conjure up, but it had become easier for them to not think about the torture Kim and Shego went through in order to make sure that everyone got a chance to survive. It was because of their unique place in Animatus's research that no one expected either Kim or Shego to do any of the mundane chores that went with maintaining a community consisting of forty people.

Yet, Kim insisted on at least making a minor attempt at helping out with meal preparations. It was easier for her to keep busy than to sit around and do nothing while Shego was off being put through something Animatus had deemed imminently important. During those times, she made more of an effort to complete the communal chores and was more effectual specifically in tutoring the children. She made an excellent instructor and if Kim had not died she suspected that she might have become a teacher. That is, if she had ever given up chasing bad guys around the world.

In some ways, Kim silently admitted to herself, life was less complicated in Animatus's world. She had freedoms under Animatus's control that she had never been able to embrace in the life she led before, and the only true expectation that had been thrust upon her was only to survive. No one cared about asking anything more of her, even though that solitary request was quite extreme at times.

"They tell me you got kicked out of the kitchens again," Shego approached Kim from behind.

Both Timothy and Kim turned to look at her, neither of them looking particularly ashamed. "I boiled water," Kim playfully defended herself. "They can't say that I didn't do anything."

"Actually," Timothy interjected, "I was the one that boiled the water. You were absentmindedly staring at the pot."

"It wasn't my night to cook anyway," Kim waved off Timothy's clarification.

"Yes well," Timothy looked between the two community leaders knowing that his company was no longer needed nor particularly desired. Shego was just returning from an examination with Animatus and he knew better than to assume Shego would want to talk to him about it. "I think I'm supposed to help with the community gardening committee today. I wouldn't want to be late for that." He started walking away from the two women. "I'll see you tonight at dinner, maybe."

Kim watched Timothy disappear behind a corner ahead of them, and then turned and wrapped an arm around Shego's body. She relished in the feeling of Shego's warmth against her body, easily recognizing this feeling as one of those freedoms she would have never indulged in during her former life. "How did things go?"

Shego cleared her throat and found something important on the ground to stare at. "The same," she mumbled.

Kim nodded knowingly. "So, Animatus's genetic modifications are still working?"

"Yep," Shego answered shortly, "stronger and more deadly, just like he wanted."

Kim nodded again, not knowing what other movement she could make that would convey her understanding. It was hard for her to find appropriate words since she too had been going through genetic modification and knew that generally words didn't make her feel better about Animatus having his hands on her and inside of her.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

"I feel different," Kim uneasily confessed to her new partner. "I'm not sure I reanimated correctly."

It had only taken them a few days to take over the community Animatus had thrust them into. Most of the other test subjects were eager to accept some leadership in the uncertain life they had been forced to enter into. They craved direction and organization in the chaos Animatus created. His previous test designs had put the subjects into an artificial environment with limited resources and no instruction. It had seemed like he simply wanted to see what lengths humankind would go through in order to survive the machinations of his sadistic mind.

Animatus had given Shego and Kim the task of organizing the chaos he had created. Kim had, at first, naively believed that all it would take to control the populace was a few kind words about respecting one another and overcoming Animatus and his control. Her words fell on mostly deaf ears since most of those in the community had already been there for years, forced to survive through whatever means possible. They didn't want to hear Kim's words of peace and order.

Shego had not been hesitant to inform Kim of her ignorance. She had made sure that Kim understood that they weren't in Middleton anymore. They weren't facing foes like Drakken and DNA Amy. They had moved up on the ladder of life difficulty and Shego was going to make damn sure that they didn't die again, because she wanted to make sure that if and when she did die again she wouldn't wake up in one of Animatus's labs on one of his cold metallic research tables. Shego was ready to do what life had forced to her to many times before: Adapt.

Against Kim's wishes, Shego used physical force to make the other community members bow down to her desires. She forced people to listen to her and to Kim's complete horror Shego had even gone so far as to kill one of the women that had seriously threatened her. They both understood that Shego's actions were in self-defense, but Kim couldn't wipe away the image of Shego's plasma burning a hole through the woman's midsection.

After seeing that, most members of the community easily bowed down to Shego. She was the only one of them that could shoot plasma from her hands and none of them were stupid enough to try and fight that. In this world, it was survival of the fittest and they each recognized Shego's greater strength. They accepted Kim by default since Shego ordered them to, and with that had succeeded in Animatus's first trial. The prize they had knowingly won was their lives and the curse they had unknowingly acquired as well was an activation of their genetic modifications.

"What do you mean you're not sure you reanimated correctly?" Shego asked irritated that Kim was talking to her at all. It had been a long day and she wanted to go to sleep. Kim's habit of wanting to communicate right before they fell asleep, Shego found, was a character trait of Kim's that really annoyed her.

"I feel different," Kim whispered from her bed. "Today, I was helping to build some of the new living quarters and I lifted a piece of the wall by myself."

Shego turned to face Kim only barely able to make out Kim's form on the bed across from her, "You what?"

"I lifted it all by myself," Kim didn't sound proud, she was worried. "I'm not that strong, Shego."

"Kimmie," Shego sighed, "why didn't you bring this up earlier?"

"Sorry," Kim snapped. "I didn't know I was supposed to report everything to you now."

"Well, you have to tell me important things!" Shego yelled back. The stress of the situation they were in well past _just_ getting to her now.

"I am telling you!" Kim yelled back. "And don't yell at me! I'm not a little kid that needs to be punished."

Shego ran her right hand across her forehead. "Fine," she responded in a barely controlled whisper. "So," she drew out the word, "you're stronger now?"

Kim stared up at the ceiling as she wrung her hands together. "A lot stronger."

"Have you noticed any other changes?" Shego had a brief flashback of when she and her brothers had been hit by the comet and had to report in to the doctors their parents had taken them to. They had often asked her and her brothers about the physical changes they experienced, always eager to write down any change that they would report in hopes of discovering another fantastic breakthrough in the name of science.

"No," Kim answered weakly. She was sure that the constant nightmares she was having had more to do with the situation they were in than any physical changes she might be going through. Besides, she didn't want to tell Shego that she was having nightmares about the woman Shego had killed. Kim just didn't see the point in starting another argument.

"So, do you think I came back...wrong?" Kim asked after a brief silence.

"I don't think so," Shego shook her head. "Animatus seems to know what he's doing."

"So," Kim struggled to say the simple single-syllable word, "he did this on purpose?"

Shego licked her lips and then briefly bit down on her lower lip. "I think so."

The room was quiet once more and Shego resettled herself into her bed. She saw no point in further discussing what Animatus might have done to Kim. They couldn't do anything about the changes and unfortunately Kim would just have to live with being made a guinea pig in more ways than one. Shego had already been forced to live with it before and she was sure Kim was strong enough to handle it now.

"Shego?" Kim whispered into the silence.

"Yeah, Kimmie?"

"Do you," Kim stuttered, "do you mind if I sleep with you tonight?"

"You are sleeping with me, Kimmie." Shego feigned ignorance.

"That's not..." Kim's voice trailed off. "Nevermind."

**PRESENT DAY**

It didn't take them long to figure out that the world they were in wasn't real, but on most days that didn't matter to either one of them. The artificial sun that rose and set every day still let off an incredible amount of heat. The sky still turned the shades that inspired artists to paint it. Perhaps, the air seemed a little cleaner and the water a little crisper, but most of the time it was easy for them to forget that they weren't out in the _real_ world anymore.

They had walked to their favorite spot: a small riverbed at the edges of their small community. They sat down and let their naked feet rest in the water. It was peaceful here, and no one was around to bother them or bare witness to any action or inaction they chose to take.

"Did he tell you what changes he was making?" Kim picked up a smooth rock, letting it warm in the palm of her hand.

"No," Shego absentmindedly lit up her right hand with plasma. "I think he's saving that for you tomorrow." She put her lit hand in the water and then warmed the water that flowed against their feet.

"Did it hurt this time?" Kim threw the rock she had in her hand and hit the center of a tree trunk standing over a hundred feet away.

"Show off," Shego kidded at she watched all of the animals rush out of the tree Kim had hit.

Kim smirked as she picked up another rock. "So, did it hurt?" She asked again.

"The injections?" Shego took her hand out of the water now that the small riverbed they sat at looked more like a Jacuzzi than a calm bed of water. "Not more than they normally do."

A small sound came from the back of Kim's throat. It was hard for her to imagine the pain Shego went through every time Animatus chose to inject them with another one of his special concoctions that was supposed to make them _better_ in some way. During the injection, Kim often felt like her blood was boiling under the surface of her skin and her bones were being eaten through by very tiny piranhas. She didn't once think that the injections were any easier for Shego to suffer through.

Shego stood up and started to undress. Once all her clothes were off, she eased into the steaming water, only slightly thankful that she now had the power to heat up an entire riverbed. Her muscles were still cramping from her visit with Animatus and she was glad for the heated water against her skin.

Kim watched Shego move in the water then quickly undressed so that she could join her companion. They rested against each other on one of the rocks in the water, no longer concerned with talking about anything that was happening around them or what might possibly happen to them.

"This is another freedom," Kim whispered to herself as she took in a deep breath of the artificially fresh air.

"What?" Shego asked not having been able to make out all of what Kim had said.

Kim kissed Shego's naked shoulder and then rested her head against it. "Nevermind."


	4. The Matchmaker

**Disclaimers: I don't own Kim Possible. Also, please keep in mind that there is (M)ature content herein. This includes violence, explicit language and sexual content. **

**THE MATCHMAKER**

Animatus's robot sat at a computer console, looking intently at the many screens in front of it. If Kim didn't know any better, she would have sworn that the robot was studying the data available on the screens drawing its own independent conclusions from the tests that had been conducted, but Kim did know better. Animatus's robots weren't sentient in any way. They were controlled and maneuvered to act as Animatus's voice and body since he refused to show his own.

No one within the community was aware if Animatus even had a body at all, or if he was just an intelligent entity that existed in voice only. If he did exist in corporeal form, no one within his control could say where it is he resided. Most of the community had only their faith in his existence as proof that Animatus was real. Many hadn't even had the privilege of talking to him.

Kim and Shego had been given the unique opportunity to hear his voice and his meager explanations when they had awoken in his world. He had taken time out to welcome them as subjects in his experiments. That's why everyone had reasoned that Kim and Shego were more important than the rest of them. They meant something to Animatus, while the rest of them didn't seem to mean much at all. Their only function was to act as a supporting cast in what was essentially Kim's and Shego's torture.

Each one of them had died before they had come to be part of Animatus's studies. They could remember dying and just as clearly remember waking up from the final sleep no one was ever supposed to wake up from. No one understood why Animatus had chosen them for his research. That is, no one except Kim and Shego.

Both of them had a pretty good idea why Animatus had taken their bodies. They were high-profile. They were special in the world where everyone seemed to get more and more ordinary by the day. They had defied death and simple laws such as gravity for years. They were ideal candidates for Animatus to gain his knowledge from.

"You have made impressive progress," The robot turned away from the screens to face Kim. "I have not been able to replicate it in your other forms."

"Do you mean the clones?" Kim sat up on the examination table she had been resting on during Animatus's tests. She pulled the gray sheet covering the lower half of her body up with her so that her breasts would not be exposed.

"Yes," the robot moved across the room and picked up a syringe full of an orange liquid Kim couldn't readily identify. "They are not as resilient as you are. They are inefficient."

"So, being able to kill people is a sign of efficiency to you?" Kim asked unable to hold back the bitterness she felt towards Animatus and his pride in her ability to adapt through the trials she'd managed to survive through.

"No," Animtaus's voice replied evenly through the robot. "Your ability to maintain your humanity through the killing is a sign of your proficiency." The robot moved back to Kim's side. "Your clones have been unable to maintain their sanity."

"Are they..." Kim cleared her throat trying to clear away the lump of disgust that lodged itself there. "Are they alone?"

"If you are inquiring as to whether or not they have companionship like the one you and Shego share, then I do not have a precise answer for you. There are many scenarios which I have designed, none of which have been as resilient as the partnership you have shared with Shego."

The robot reached out and grabbed onto one of Kim's arms. She let the sheet fall out of her grasp, leaving her left breast exposed to the emotionless piece of metal that was beside her. Without warning, the robot plunged the syringe into Kim's arm forcing a short hiss to escape from her. It only took a few moments for the nerves throughout her body to start sending blinding flashes of torment to her brain.

Her body collapsed back onto the table and she forced her eyes shut so she didn't stare at the vacant gaze of the robot as it dispassionately observed her pain.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

Kim had been more than reluctant to take action on the second trial Animatus had assigned her. She had been stubborn and refused to do anything Animatus demanded of her. It had been a little over a month since she woke up in Animatus's control, and she was through with listening to a voice that acted as if it were a god.

She and Shego had already died, Kim reasoned, and it was obviously their fate to be dead. She rebelled with her own self-assurance that it didn't matter what Animatus did to them because they were already dead. It didn't matter any more what became of her. No one she loved and cared for would be witness to anything that happened to her now.

Kim had conveniently forgotten that she wasn't alone only surrounded by complete strangers that ran the gambit of personal morality and ethics. It was easier for her to forget time and again that Shego's life was tied to her own. For a young woman who took on responsibility like it was covered in chocolate, Kim ran away from accepting responsibility for Shego's life. Her youth had never been more apparent than it had been during her first month in Animatus's research.

The young superhero had been removed from her comfort zones and was denied access to her over-abundant support systems. Ron wasn't with her this time and she couldn't conveniently call on Wade for a transport to safety. Her parents weren't there to tell her that things would turn out okay. Without the masses of people that always stood behind her with their support ready and willing, Kim found herself falling apart at the seams, and Shego was woefully unequipped to provide the emotional support Kim sought.

"This isn't just about you!" Shego had yelled at Kim. Her biting honesty the only thing she knew how to call on to get Kim to follow Animatus's demands.

"We're already dead, Shego," Kim replied, her mental and physical exhaustion infusing her words. "What does anything matter anymore?"

Shego invaded Kim's personal space and then raised her hand and slapped Kim across the face. "Did you feel that?" She grabbed onto Kim's shirtfront, intent on not letting Kim step away from her. "Did that hurt you?"

Kim grabbed at her reddened cheek. She was unable to give voice to any of the many words her brain fed her as a reply to Shego's actions. She helplessly tried to pull away from Shego, but Shego's grip on her was too strong.

"Did it hurt?" Shego asked again, intent on getting some response from her former rival.

"Yes," Kim mumbled her reply.

Shego released her grip on Kim's shirt, resulting in Kim falling back onto the ground. "That means you're alive just like all these other people stuck in here are alive." She turned away from the teary Kim. "It's about time you got over yourself, Kim Possible. This show isn't just about you anymore."

Kim picked herself up off the ground. She brushed off the non-existent dirt on her pants. She wanted nothing more than to attack Shego, but she knew better than to try. Animatus had made them both stronger and a fight between them now would only result in real injury that Kim didn't want to be responsible for inflicting since she still hadn't mastered control of her body.

"He wants me to lead a team of people on a mission I already know they won't survive," Kim called out to Shego. "Everyone will die except for me, and he said he's not reanimating any of them."

Shego turned around. "I'll be here when it's over."

Kim wanted to repeat what she had just said, hoping that Shego hadn't completely understood her, but she knew better than that. Shego had understood the actions Kim had been told to take, and Kim suspected that Shego even understood the consequences better than Kim was currently capable of understanding. Kim knew that she wasn't going to win this argument, so she nodded her acceptance and then turned around and prepared to enter Animatus's battlefield.

**PRESENT DAY**

"Your upgrade is complete," Animatus's robot moved away from Kim's weary body. "You may return to the community."

Kim weakly nodded, happy that she had been able to hold back her bodies urge to scream out her pain. She no longer wished Animatus to see the effects he had on her. She no longer wished for Animatus to experience emotion vicariously through her. He had witnessed enough already, and she didn't want to give him the privilege of witnessing anymore.

It was illogical, she knew, since Animatus's cameras were everywhere and he could hear and see everything she did, but while in his labs Kim wanted to attain at least some control no matter how meager and pathetic. She didn't have a say as to what he did to her body. She couldn't choose what trials she was put through. All she was was Animatus's rat in a human sized cage but she always did her best to fight back where she could whether it made any difference or not.

Kim forced her legs to swing over the edge of the table. They barely held her weight when she stood up, but she willed herself to remain standing. She had given up on showing weakness to anyone but Shego not long after she had been through her first few trials. She refused to appear vulnerable to anyone who might take advantage of her.

"You hate me," Animatus's unexpectedly said, his voice no longer coming from the robot but from a speaker near the lab's exit.

"You can't hate inanimate objects," Kim replied.

"I have often debated whether I am alive or not," Animatus's cold voice responded. "The definition of what is life seems to not answer for my existence."

"And you think this research will answer it?" Kim laughed humorlessly. "You must be a machine."

"That is accurate, Kim Possible. I am a machine; my existence not defined accurately by science, much like you, Kim Possible. You are no longer alive. You no longer can be defined as life."

"I know," Kim sighed. "You created me."

If she had been able to escape Animatus's world and entered into the one she had formerly been a part of, she was sure that no one would be able to recognize her. Animatus had changed so many things about her that she looked almost like an entirely different person. He had molded her into someone else so that he could study the changes and obtain data about humanity.

He had made her taller. He had darkened the shade of her eyes and changed the shape of them. Her muscles were more pronounced. Her hair shorter, the color more brunette now than red, and that was only the external differences. Internally, he had taken out unnecessary organs and added on more important ones. Kim was silently thankful that he hadn't ever quite figured out how to successfully integrate gills on her body; she never considered them to be very attractive.

Ultimately, Animatus believed that he had made her better than she was before. He believed he had given Shego and Kim great gifts towards being more self-sufficient beings. He had invested his time and intelligence in making them more than the weak beings that had surrounded them. For him, this was payment to Kim and Shego for their participation in his research. For him, it was enough to make amends for their anguish.

"You will be given time to recuperate before the next trials are begun."

Kim leaned her body against the doorframe, having already wasted her energy reserves during her short conversation with Animatus. "What are the trials going to be this time?"

"Have you ever thought of having a family of your own, Kim Possible?"

"When I was younger," Kim answered honestly, briefly allowing herself to fall into her memories of when she used to daydream about becoming Ron Stoppable's wife. She had imagined that they would get married when they had graduated from college, and then they would have their first child. Kim was positively certain that it would have been a girl and in true Possible tradition, they would name the baby girl Kimberly. Kim had never quite figured out whether or not she would take Ron's last name. She had never really thought that Kim Stoppable had the same eloquence to it as Kim Possible did.

"I've since given up on those thoughts," Kim smiled self-deprecatingly. She would never become Ron's wife and she even suspected that she wouldn't have fully enjoyed that life if she had been given an opportunity to pursue it. She was at peace with Shego and she was unsure if she could have ever attained that with Ron.

"Shego is unable to carry children," Animatus needlessly informed Kim. "So, by default you shall carry the child. I have read that motherhood is a great experience of humanity."

Kim took several deep breaths and clenched her jaw. Her right hand shakily reached out for her stomach. "Am I pregnant?"

"I believe the proper term for a situation such as this is: congratulations." Animatus didn't smile, didn't laugh, and didn't ever get angry. He never showed emotion at all, still incapable of comprehending that which even a newborn baby understood. Kim would have sworn in that moment, however despite Animatus's lack of ability, that he sounded smug with his empty congratulatory offerings.

"Is it mine?" Kim asked through gritted teeth.

"Genetically, it is yours and Shego's. I have developed a revolutionary design for reproduction. You are my first human candidate for testing this method. I will warn you, however, that my research has yet to yield a high probability of success. You have a fifty percent chance of carrying the child to term."

Kim pushed herself off of the doorframe and let her hand fall from her stomach. She didn't wish to exchange any more words with Animatus. She didn't know what else she could say to him, and more importantly she had no idea how she was going to inform Shego that Animatus wanted to see how they would do as parents to a hybrid child that they might never actually see grow.

**THREE YEARS AGO**

As Kim exited the battlefield, she had never quite felt as alive as she did in that moment. She had minor cuts and bruises covering her body and she could feel her blood pulsing just under her skin's surface. Adrenaline ran through her like she had never felt before. It took her under its control and drowned out the subtle sense of dread she felt at successfully completing the trial Animatus had set up for her.

She had no words to describe the odd sense of superiority and power that overwhelmed her. She felt the urge to re-enter the battlefield to find another fight to enter into. She wanted to inhale the sweet smell of blood again knowing that she was the cause for it being spilt.

As she had promised, Shego was waiting for Kim as she completed her mission. She easily identified the state of mind Kim had entered. She could even smell the pheromones coming from Kim and was unknowingly drawn to them.

"We should take care of your injuries," Shego brusquely commented, intent on ignoring the confusing responses her body was having to Kim's presence.

In a move quicker than Shego had ever seen Kim make before, Kim reached out and grabbed onto Shego's right shoulder. She pushed the taller woman up against the nearest wall and then started sniffing at Shego's neck. Shego tried to push Kim away but found that she wasn't strong enough to compete against the adrenaline running through Kim's body.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Kimmie?" Shego asked when she realized that Kim only seemed to be getting more worked up from her struggles.

"You're supposed to be mine," Kim whispered into Shego's ear.

"What the fuck happened in that room?" Shego yelled, barely able to keep her instinct to light up her hands with plasma at bay.

Kim fought for control of her own body. She knew what she was doing was completely outside of her normal behavior. She pushed herself away from Shego and then dropped down onto the floor. She curled up into herself, willing her brain to once again gain the control she had lost.

Tentatively, Shego approached Kim. She sat down next to her ex-rival and took Kim into her arms. "It's going to be okay, Kimmie."

"I don't…" Kim stuttered. "I don't remember what I've done." Tears were falling from her eyes down onto Shego's exposed shoulder. "I don't remember what happened."

"It's probably better that way," Shego weakly replied. She had already figured out that the genetic changes Animatus had been making to them were probably to blame for Kim's behavior. He had done something to Kim that made the nineteen-year-old much more aggressive than she had been before. She also reluctantly admitted to herself that he had probably also had done something to her that made her physically respond to Kim's current state.

Shego had accepted the situation they had been forced into. She had come to terms with her lack of control, but she was uncertain if she could as readily accept the plans Animatus had made for her relationship with Kim. She had coped with her inferior status in life by maintaining strict control of her physical, mental and emotional state. That was one of the reasons why she had gotten so irate when Drakken had taken control of her body. He had pierced the control that she always held stringently onto, and now it seemed that Animatus was intent on doing the same.

He had altered her physical chemistry which in turn now effected her emotional and mental functioning. Shego didn't want to feel the amount of affection she felt towards Kim in that moment, but she was powerless to deny her emotion. She found it ironic that she had managed to maintain a strict cordial rivalry with Kim for so many years to only have it broken down in a month by an entity with no emotional capacity whatsoever.

Kim's tears began to dry up and the former heroine finally gained some control of herself, casting away the emotional wreck that had acted as an imposter in her body. She pulled away from Shego's comforting embrace and then brushed herself off ready to pretend like nothing had ever happened, which would be easy since she didn't really understand anything that had transpired. She couldn't even clearly recall just why it was she was wrapped up in Shego's embrace being held like a small helpless child.

The only thing which she plainly understood was that her relationship with Shego was now altered. She could feel the change within her blood and on a subconscious level acknowledged that Shego now meant more to her than any other being ever had before. It was in her DNA and it could not be removed.

**PRESENT DAY**

As always, Shego patiently waited for Kim to exit from Animatus's labs. She readily offered her support to her weakened companion and refrained from asking any questions. Shego knew that when Kim was ready to share the experience of what she went through with Animatus she would. For now, Kim needed the comfort and easy familiarity that Shego had offered the very first time the young heroine had returned from her first solitary visit with Animatus.

For some reason, Animatus had chosen to speak to Kim about his experiments and the direction of his research. He never broached the subject matter with Shego and never explained his reasoning for choosing Kim as a confidant. Shego suspected that this choice of his, like all the others, was in some way connected to his experiments. He was using Kim for something, and just hadn't admitted to it yet.

Shego carefully picked Kim up off of the ground and cradled the smaller body to her own. This would not be the first time Shego carried an exhausted Kim back to their room, and she suspected that it wouldn't be the last. Every time Animatus did a genetic modification, it seemed to take more energy away from them than it gave.

Shego considered herself lucky since her body seemed more adept at adjusting to the genetic changes than Kim. She suspected her body was just more used to the trauma that accompanied the changes since she had adapted to traumatic physical changes since she was a small child. Kim had not had the same experiences in youth, so suffered more now.

Once in their shared home, Shego carefully placed Kim's body on their bed. She ran her hand down Kim's face wishing there was something more she could do to help. She always felt so utterly useless when faced with Kim's pain. It echoed off of Kim onto her, and Shego hadn't yet figured out how to help heal Kim through the physical bond Animatus had manufactured between them.

Kim's eyes slowly opened and she took in her surroundings, thankful to not have woken up once again in Animatus's labs. Her mind ran through the recent information she had acquired and quickly filtered out the unnecessary details she had absorbed. She looked up at Shego and then reached out and took Shego's hand in her own. She brought their clasped hands to her heart and then let out a heavy sigh.

"I'm pregnant," she whispered uncertain of how else she could broach the subject, thinking it would be easier now to reveal Animatus's new experiment while she was still weak enough to garner Shego's sympathy.

Shego's eyes closed for a brief moment. When they reopened, they held the same air of acceptance that always came with the changes Animatus chose to make. "It's okay."

Kim nodded once, and then curled her body up once again ready to use sleep as a way to briefly be released from her pain. She kept Shego's hand in her own, unwilling to lose the solitary connection she had to the peaceful comfort Shego offered. When she awoke, they could do their best to discuss what would happen next, but for now it didn't matter.


	5. The Goddess of Wisdom Justice and War

**Disclaimers: I don't own Kim Possible. Also, please keep in mind that there is (M)ature content herein. This includes violence, explicit language and sexual content.**

**THE GODDESS OF WISDOM JUSTICE AND WAR**

Shego placed her hands against the cold glass in front of her. She leaned in towards the clear surface, her deep green eyes unable and unwilling to blink away the image in front of her. She couldn't close her eyes to the torrent of motion in front of her. Though the area immediately around her was deafly silent, she swore she could hear Kim's screams through the wall of glass that separated them.

It wasn't difficult for her brain to fill in the sounds that were more than likely being made in the room in front of her, a room she had been denied access to because it was Animatus's will. Instead, she was thrown into a side-room that only allowed the sound of her harsh breathing to reverberate off of the sterile walls and lacked any sensory release except for the clear image of Kim suffering through the birth of a child her body had not been properly prepared to deliver.

It had been Kim's eighth week of pregnancy when Animatus had bothered to inform both Kim and Shego that he felt the normal nine-month gestation period for a human fetus was inefficient. In a rare moment of explaining himself, he let Kim and Shego know that he was attempting to rectify this short-coming of human evolution by making it possible for Kim to develop a child within a period of three months. The only reassurance he offered was to announce that any damage this caused to Kim's body he would repair. He considered Kim's body of more value to him than that of the fetus. He could always inject Kim with another.

As they had been more than used to doing, Kim and Shego kept their objections to Animatus's decisions to themselves. His actions were, as always, beyond their control. They had silently discussed the option of finding a way to abort the child, but knew that Animatus would be able to implant Kim with child as many times as necessary until they cooperated with the series of tests he wished to run. No matter what, Animatus would get his desired results.

At this moment, however, as Shego watched the beads of sweat dropping off of Kim's body and the contorted mask of anguish that covered her lover's face, Shego wished she had opened her mouth to speak out against Animatus. It didn't matter how futile the attempt would have been, she just wished she had tried to reason with the being who analyzed everything through his solitary pursuit to understand humanity.

She wasn't sure what her argument would have been. She had never been well-versed enough in logical argument to fight against Animatus, but now Shego regretted more than ever not trying to win one battle as important as this. Kim had deserved more from her than her silent capitulation. This time, Animatus had asked too much of them.

Unconciously, Shego lit up her hands and the green hot plasma warmed the surface of the glass she was leaning against. Her nails scratched the surface as she saw Kim scream out again from the pain tearing through her body. Her head was thrown back, her veins in bright contrast to the paleness of her white skin. Kim's hand gripped onto the thin fabric covering her body, tearing it apart in her fingers. Three of Animatus's robots surrounded her body, performing whatever tasks Animatus deemed most important. They worked with cold efficiency, not able to understand the importance of their current tasks.

"If you continue to heat the glass you will shatter it, Shego," Animatus's voice interrupted the sound of Shego's staccato breaths bouncing off of the sterile white walls.

"Fuck you!" Shego yelled, this time consciously intensifying the heat coming from her hands, reveling in the feeling of the plasma pulsing through her hands, matching the same beat as her heart.

"The resulting shards could be dangerous," Animatus calmly warned. "Kim is currently already in a state of trauma."

"Are you going to let her die?" Shego asked, her eyes still focused on Kim knowing that it didn't matter if she looked in the direction Animatus's voice came from since he would not physically appear next to her.

"At this time, I have no definitive probability of what her chances of living are," Animatus answered, and if Shego didn't know better she would have said he sounded like he almost regretted not having an answer for her.

"How much pain does she have to go through before you're satisfied?" Shego could feel the glass cracking under her hands.

"Kim's pain is not my goal, Shego. I only wish to learn." Shego was disgusted by how innocent Animatus managed to sound. She hated that his words were truth. Kim's pain was only a by-product of Animatus's true intentions. He didn't understand the consequences he had created. He was incapable of understanding.

"Then why keep me away from her?" Shego desperately asked. "Why cause her more pain?"

"You are in her presence." Animatus responded. "I have not separated you."

"I'm in here and she's in there," Shego whispered against the heated glass. "We're miles apart."

"Your words are inaccurate since you are only thirteen meters apart," Animatus immediately replied, "but your bio-readings indicate that this experience is causing you anxiety."

"If I could," Shego finally turned away from Kim's suffering to the spot Animatus's voice had been coming from, "I'd kill you. Nothing would be able to stop me."

"I cannot die, Shego," Animatus's words floated around the room, giving tangible evidence to his ethereal existence.

"Zeus defeated the Titans," Shego whispered. "David, Goliath." The glass Shego's hands rested on finally shattered under the pressure of the intense heat her hands had generated. "I'll find a way to defeat you."

**2.5 YEARS AGO**

It was the weekend, or at least Shego pretended that it was the weekend. Animatus's world didn't adhere to conventional days of the week. He devised his own environment and based his calendar off of his creations. He had failed to see the direct benefits of having a weekend, but since Shego wasn't sent off to the battlefield and since Kim hadn't been either she likened the day off as a warm sunny Saturday afternoon.

She lay out on the ground and soaked up the heat of the artificial sun above her. The proportions of the atmosphere that surrounded her never did seem quite right but if she closed her eyes she could pretend that she was sitting out on one of the islands she had previously made her quick getaways to. It hadn't even taken her brain long to accept that in this moment of escape, Kim Possible had come along with her.

Shego found it easy to accept the changes that had been forced upon her since her death. She had always made an effort in actively detaching herself from the world she existed in. It had been a self-defense mechanism she had developed long before she had become a villain. Her attitude was only one of the many consequences of her unique childhood experiences. She had spent most of her life pretending not to care and she knew she had become quite good at the act she had spent most of her life perfecting.

Animatus had just informed Kim and Shego that the time that had passed since their resurrection had now spanned a full six months. Shego accepted the information and moved on to the next seemingly important thing that was in need of her attention. Kim, on the other hand, had burst into tears. She cried for the family and friends she remembered but couldn't ever contact again, and in a moment of weakness Shego recognized Kim's pain and took the former heroine to the artificial spot they now rested at.

Kim was curled up in Shego's arms, taking what comfort she could from the familiarity Shego offered thankful that Shego allowed this small amount of physical contact. Normally, the only physical contact Shego allowed between them was during their immediate frantic sexual physicality after one of them left Animatus's battlefield. Neither of them was strong enough to deny the biological need Animatus had created within them, and therefore could not control the need for release that the modifications had stirred.

They didn't talk about the encounters, neither feeling the need to admit to a weakness they couldn't control. Silently however, they could at least admit to themselves that the act as it was disgusted them. Neither was fully capable of giving nor denying consent. It was something they physically needed when they left their battlefield trials. It had since become something they each craved, and it was that need that sickened them.

It forced a connection between them that neither had ever thought capable of developing. Kim had never pondered the hypothetical possibility of ever seeing Shego naked beneath her moaning out her climax, and more often than not Shego had thought of Kim as no more than a respectful adversary; she had never wondered what it would be like to caress Kim's naked skin. Their previous lives had given them no need to ponder these intimacies.

Perhaps, through time and trial the two would have eventually considered being friends. Perhaps, Shego would have eventually gotten tired of her life with the blue-skinned scientist she had attached herself to and perhaps she would have sought out a way to be with her brothers again. Perhaps, Kim might have even considered retiring from the hero business and she and Shego could have gotten to know each other outside of their 'work'. Perhaps they would have found common ground.

Perhaps was a curse both of them never dared to utter. What could have happened was unimportant because they had died and now by some artificial being's will they were lovers, but despite the facts being what they were Kim could still find tears to cry for her lost life. She could still cry for the loss she had suffered even though she was the one that was supposed to have died. She could cry for the six months of death she had been denied.

"Why are you still crying?" Shego asked harshly, no longer able to ignore the patch of wetness that developed on her chest from Kim's inability to 'just get over it'.

Kim wiped at her face. "Don't you ever miss your family?" She asked, knowing better than to let Shego's tone bother her.

"No," Shego answered shortly.

Kim sat up and looked down at the woman beneath her. "I don't believe you," she challenged.

Shego shrugged. "What's there to believe?" She leaned back and closed her eyes, forcing her demeanor to remain nonchalant in the face of the challenge Kim had just thrown at her.

"I know you feel," Kim whispered afraid that speaking her words too loudly would jar Shego into a physical confrontation.

"It's better we pretend that I don't." There was a surprisingly lack of malice in Shego's words and there was no hint of denial.

"Why?"

Slowly, Shego sat up so that she could meet Kim's genuinely concerned green eyes. She stared at her new lover and mapped out the physical changes Kim's body had been through with her own improved vision. Kim wasn't the teenage girl Shego remembered dying with. "Trust me."

Kim nodded and then tentatively reached out her hand, and upon seeing no move from Shego to pull away Kim gently gripped onto Shego's wrist. "Then, my tears are for you, too."

Shego recognized that this was a perfect moment for her to make a sarcastic comment and remove herself from what it was Kim Possible was trying to pull her into, but she couldn't find the sarcasm inside anymore. So instead of falling back on what she knew, she did something she had never suspected herself capable of; she sat up and then slowly leaned over and kissed Kim gently on the cheek. "Thank you."

Knowing not to push this any further than it had already gone, Kim separated herself from Shego and repositioned herself on the ground. She wiped away her tears as she took in a deep breath of the artificial air around them that somehow now seemed better. "Let's enjoy our weekend."

"Do you think we could talk Animatus into giving us a beach?" Shego lightly asked as she leaned back down, making sure that some part of her body maintained contact with Kim's.

"He'd probably fill it with sharks," Kim joked.

"Yeah," Shego chuckled softly, not quite able to keep out the full disdain she felt towards their captor in her short utterance.

**PRESENT DAY**

Glass flew around the small room, finding a welcoming home in the chaos Animatus had already created. Shego ran to Kim's side, unconcerned with what punishment Animatus might choose to impart.

"Kim!" Shego yelled as she grabbed onto one of Kim's hands. "I'm here."

Kim's bloodshot eyes focused briefly onto Shego's face but were quickly hidden away by closed lids. A roar of pain tore itself from Kim's throat and Shego could feel her hand being crushed under her former enemy's hold. She had suffered pain from Kim's touch before, but had never welcomed and relished in it as much as she did in that moment. It meant that they were still both alive.

Once she passed the threshold into Kim's room, Shego could have sworn that time significantly sped up. In mere moments, a baby's cries entered into the room and left it just as quickly. Animatus announced that Kim had survived her latest trial and his robots cleaned up the blood and stitched Kim's body back together again, once again repairing the damage they alone had caused.

A stimulant was injected into Kim's body and within moments she was awake and alert, her body hardly even aware of the trauma it had just suffered through. "What happened?"

"You have given birth to a female child," Animatus's voice answered. "The success of this experiment was unexpected."

"The child's still alive?" Shego asked, not having bothered to pay attention to what was happening with the baby earlier. She had already resigned herself to the fact that the child would not survive, so her focus had been maintained solely on Kim.

"She lives," Animatus's voice came from one of the robots that was now concerning itself with cleaning up the shattered glass covering the floor.

"What," Kim's voice stumbled over the simple word. "What are you going to do with her?"

"You will integrate her into your community after I have finished with my examination of her," Animatus coldly informed.

"You're going to let us raise her?" Shego sounded surprised. She expected Animatus to take her away, clone her, and then find some hideous way to introduce her to them later on the battlefield.

"She is now part of my research," Animatus's voice shifted from the robot cleaning the floor to another that was entering data into a console.

"Then it would have been better if she died," Kim moved closer to Shego's body, happy that Shego no longer denied her the luxury of human contact.

"Athena was Zeus's favorite daughter," Animatus's robots ceased their activity. "Perhaps, that is the name you should give your child."

The side-door opened with a soft hiss, admitting another one of Animatus's robots. It had a small bundle in its artificial arms that both Shego and Kim readily identified as their newly born child. The robot slid into the room making its way to the bed Kim was still laid out on. "Her genetics are strong," Animatus said through the robot as it handed the child over to Kim, and for the first time Kim and Shego were able to see their baby girl.

Her eyes were dark green, darker than either of her parents'. She had thick deep black hair that appeared to have dark red highlights running through it, and her skin had a light green tint to it. She was a perfect amalgamation of her parents.

"She's beautiful," Kim whispered. "I didn't…" Her voice trailed off, unable to finish the words that would bring any perception of disapproval to the child she now held.

"She's ours," Shego reached out the hand not holding onto Kim and ran her finger delicately over the face of her child.

Kim smiled. "Our little Athena."

"Athena," Shego let the name roll off her tongue, not quite sure she agreed with letting Animatus name their child since she was unsure of his motives. If she was into guessing what any of Animatus's motives were, she would make a guess that he was offering a conciliatory gesture. If she had to guess from her experiences from her past life, she would guess that her threat had actually affected him in some way, or maybe he was just reaffirming his own authority.

Normally, Shego would decide that Animatus's motives didn't matter. She would move on from this experience with Kim and await their next trial making the best of the life they had while they were given it. Experience in Animatus's world had long ago taught her that analyzing this event wouldn't be worth it, but Shego was ready to build new experiences.

Shego had already reconciled that she and Kim had already been given their chance at life. They had played their cards and in the end they had died and left the world, but Athena hadn't been given that same chance at life. Athena deserved to be given a blank slate that didn't include being part of Animatus's world. There was nothing Shego could give her child, nothing tangible. She owned nothing and was nothing in the world they lived in, but she would not bestow that station to her daughter. She refused.

The warrior that had laid dormant inside of Shego finally resurfaced. It was stronger now. It was more focused. It had a family to set free. She meant was she had told Animatus. Shego was going to find a way to defeat him. She was going to find a way to bring Kim and herself back to life. She was going to kill Animatus.

**Author's Note: Let me know what you think.**


	6. The Sun and Moon

**Disclaimers: I don't own Kim Possible. Also, please keep in mind that there is (M)ature content herein. This includes violence, explicit language and sexual content. The story used at the end of this chapter is Zuni so I didn't make it up and take no credit for it.**

**The Sun and Moon**

It was business as usual, or as business as usual as her life could be with the constant inconsistencies that had become her life. She was out on Animatus's battlefield once again, but this time her mission seemed eerily familiar. The only detail missing was a sidekick with a naked mole rat. The faces that surrounded her were different, but the actions were all the same. Kim already knew what was supposed to happen before it did. She could guess as to what her actions should be, but a lot of time had passed since she was that girl in braces who was unexpectedly on her way to becoming a hero.

This was a reenactment of her first mission. The house was a perfect replication and the lines being fed to her by the people that surrounded her were achingly accurate. Kim briefly wondered if Animatus had developed the ability to go back in time, but quickly realized that it was much more plausible that he had just been able to attain the information from her own memories of the event. He had probably figured out a way to take memories from her that she didn't even know she remembered.

Yet, since this had already happened Kim supposed that this should be an easy mission for her. All she had to do was what she had done before and she would come out the victor, because in this past life she had always been the victor. No one else had ever beaten her. This past life had been much easier.

She studied the lasers in front of her with a critical eye. It looked simpler than she remembered it, but knew that Animatus wouldn't have altered the details of this experience for her. He would keep things the same. It wouldn't be accurate research unless he kept things the same. The environment was the controlling factor while she was experimental entity.

"I'm almost an expert on scientific research now," Kim said to herself, a soft chuckle accompanying her words. She had learned more about empirical data and the varying types of experiments than she ever had from a science book, and it wasn't knowledge that she particularly valued. Despite her parents' professions, she never wanted to be a scientist.

"What?" The replica of the billionaire she had helped years ago asked her. "Did you say something to me?"

Kim rubbed at her face and released a long sigh. "Not really." She wasn't completely concerned with making sure she kept up her end of this little reenactment. Ron wasn't here, so the experience was already different.

She rolled her shoulders and then quickly sprung into action, moving between the lasers with quiet efficiency. She deactivated the system and had dutifully fulfilled her part of this charade. The billionaire thanked her and then Animatus announced that her trial was completed, and Kim was left feeling oddly unfulfilled. She had become used to Animatus asking of her more than any normal human could rightly be expected to complete. She was used to pulling off the impossible and jumping through a couple of lasers just didn't seem much of a challenge worth completing.

It didn't take Kim long to then understand that she no longer could be rightfully compared to the person that had completed this mission all those short years ago. She was a mother now. She had a beautiful baby girl who had only just begun to form garbled utterances into actual words, and that little girl's other parent just happened to be Kim's former enemy, and female enemy at that. Kim had outgrown her youth, and she no longer saw any reason to mourn its passing.

Kim walked off of the battlefield, feeling none of the normal urges that would normally accompany a completed mission. She went through a quick debriefing that Animatus didn't seem interested in completing. Perhaps, the action had been a little bland for his tastes as well. Maybe he had become used to watching one of his favored test subjects perform miracles.

Once Animatus was through with her, Kim exited into the area Shego inhabited during Kim's trials. She let Shego wrap her arms around her as they both re-entered the community and walked to their room in silence. They had a routine that they followed after they exited the battlefield and Kim saw no reason as to why they should deviate from it. Animatus would get suspicious about any changes and that just wouldn't do since they were trying to kill him.

Kim led Shego to their bed, and then laid her lover down on it. She hovered over Shego's body, letting her eyes roam over flesh she had never thought she could crave so much. Almost upon their own will, Kim's hands touched down onto Shego's soft skin.

"What…" Shego began to ask, but Kim silenced her with a soft kiss. When she pulled away she could see the surprise written across her lover's face.

"You're in control," Shego realized.

"Yeah," Kim kissed down Shego's neck, "this time I get to love you because I want to and not because I need to."

"Does Animatus know?" Shego whispered.

"I don't know," Kim's hand moved from Shego's abdomen to her breast, "and right now I don't really care. I want to always love you while I have the control to."

Shego reached out and encased Kim's face in her hands. "Okay," she said and then guided Kim's lips back down to hers.

**2.5 YEARS AGO**

They only shared a bed after they fucked; that's the only reason why they currently were in the same bed. Every other time they slept, they kept to their own beds. They acted more like roommates than anything else, keeping strict rules about their personal space, needing that small amount of control in this simple aspect of their new lives. Kim's need for platonic physical comfort had slowly waned over the past couple of months.

A lot of things Kim had thought she needed had slowly become useless. Animatus provided them with the necessities for life, and was kind enough to add in a few extras. They always had ample food and water. Their wardrobe was limited, but what Animatus did allow them to have was always fresh, clean, and newly made. He had even given them the means to create music, a luxury he said was important to the development of many societies across the world.

A few trunks filled to the brim with varying musical instruments that many members of the community didn't even recognize were given to them. Animatus had simply told them that they could now, "tell your history through music". He had failed, however, to give them a way to learn how to play the instruments he had provided.

Kim had reluctantly picked up a clarinet, an instrument she remembered trying to briefly play when she was in middle school. Shego had unexpectedly gone to one of the trunks filled with the more unrecognizable instruments and pulled out what to Kim looked like a shiny piece of hollow wood. She then walked away from the crowd hovering over the instruments, and when Kim had bothered to seek her roommate out she found Shego sitting against a tree playing the shiny piece of wood she had picked up.

As soon as Shego realized she was no longer alone, she threw some biting remark Kim's way and then stormed off. Kim didn't follow and she didn't really want to put in any energy in learning what the shiny piece of wood was, even if Shego had managed to make it produce a sound that offered beauty into the harsh world they lived in.

"You're being too quiet," Shego commented softly. "You're hardly ever quiet."

Kim made an unintelligible sound and then curled up into herself on her side of Shego's small bed, completely immersed in her shame. It had been a while since she had truly regretted the biological reactions she had after exiting the battlefield, so didn't feel too much guilt about taking a moment of self pity. Shego never chastised Kim for the marks Kim left on her body, so in an odd desire for justice, Kim castigated herself for the behavior she could not find a way to control.

It didn't matter that the marks distributed along Shego's green skin had already healed, and in turn it didn't matter that similar marks had marred Kim's pale skin. Kim still felt her guilt and shame. She could not hide from it, because she still believed that _she_ should be better than the person she was becoming. Animatus had taken control of her body, altering genetic coding and environmental circumstance. He had changed his prisoners to suit his wants and desires. Still, Kim Possible knew she should have been able to find some way to fight it. She was still supposed to be the girl that could do anything, except she now knew that she wasn't capable of doing everything.

She couldn't remember the exact moment she had given up on thinking of escaping—she suspected it was after Animatus had killed her and she was introduced to her mortality beyond the fact she had already died—but in the end she had given up. Kim understood that there was no point in fighting against something that was so intent on having her as a subject in an experiment she didn't fully understand. It wasn't all bad. She could have been completely alone. Animatus could have tried making them physically weaker than choosing to make them stronger. He could have tortured her with images of her past.

Shego stared at her companion, no longer needing Kim to voice emotion in order to know what it was Kim felt. She could read the young woman lying next to her better than she ever thought possible. Kim, at one point, had been a conundrum to her. She couldn't understand Kim's constant motivation to help people without any tangible rewards. She couldn't understand why Kim was so well liked, despite her vomit-worthy uptight goody attitude. She didn't understand why Kim was so special as to have diverted from being a normal complicated human being.

Shego couldn't understand Kim at all, but in the passing of almost a year and a joint death, Shego understood Kim a lot better. She had decoded Kim Possible and even was willing to admit that in turn had been decoded by Kim Possible. Kim, despite the image given to the world, was a deeply complicated and flawed individual. And to Shego's great disappointment, she couldn't help but like the woman she now occasionally shared more than a bed with.

With a quick roll of her eyes, Shego climbed out of her warm bed. She walked over to the narrow shelf built into their room's wall and then swiped, what Kim called, the shiny piece of wood off of a small stand she had built especially for the small wooden pipe. She then turned back towards the bed, not having needed to turn around to see Kim openly staring at her nude body. Shego moved back to the bed and then sat down at its very edge.

She closed her eyes and then took a deep breath before she brought the shiny, hollow piece of wood to her lips and started playing a song Kim had no idea how to identify. Kim had only heard Shego play the Native American Flute one time before, and while she appreciated the privilege of having heard what she was able to, she knew not to ask Shego to play the small wooden flute for her. The music meant something to Shego. Kim just didn't know what that something was; it was just more than what awkwardly playing the clarinet meant to her. It was just part of Shego's former life, a life Kim still new very little about.

The last note from the calming song slowly was swallowed into silence, and Kim found voice to ask, "What's the name of it? What did you just play?"

Shego looked down to the flute she held in her hands. Her fingers ran across the engravings on the dark red wood and silently wished she had chosen to play a different song. "It doesn't matter, Princess."

Kim's eyes roamed over Shego's body, gauging whether she had been given unspoken permission to insist on getting a real answer to her question. Her libido errantly added its silent approval to the image her eyes took in of Shego's dark hair covering part of her face while her naked body was exposed and her hands caressed an instrument that gave Shego's inner beauty a chance to speak.

"What's the name of the song?" Kim asked again, while she abandoned her resting place against the bed's headboard so that she could crawl closer to the woman sitting in front of her.

Shego's eyes rose from the flute, meeting Kim's directly. "It doesn't matter. It made you feel better didn't it?"

Knowing she would not learn what she wanted, Kim let go of her desire for knowledge instead letting her desire to touch Shego's flesh take over the sudden void. She straddled Shego's lap, and carefully took the flute from Shego's hands. She set it carefully aside, knowing its worth was far greater than she could imagine.

"What are you doing?" Shego asked as Kim slowly began to kiss her neck.

"I'm making you feel better," Kim whispered into Shego's ear.

Shego smirked, "I wasn't feeling bad, Kimmie."

Kim pulled away from Shego. She looked her roommate in the eyes, doing her best to bring voice to an emotion she couldn't fully understand. This feeling was new for her. She was almost certain she felt desire, lust, a hunger for Shego that wasn't attached to her coming from the battlefield. This was genuine, and genuine was too foreign to her for her to really understand it anymore.

"We can't turn back from this, Kim" Shego softly warned, fully understanding what this would mean. She understood it the moment she picked up her flute and began to play.

"What's the name of the song?"

"The name?" Shego chuckled.

"Don't say it doesn't matter, Shego." Kim demanded. "I know it matters because it came from here," she placed her hand over Shego's wildly beating heart.

"It's called 'My Heart's Friend'," she relented. "It's a Shoshone love song."

Kim reached out and encased Shego's face in her hands. "Okay," she said and then guided Shego's lips down to hers.

**PRESENT DAY**

Athena crawled across their bodies, unbothered by the fact that neither of her parents was completely clothed. The toddler reached out for the shiny wooden object that had earned her undivided attention, but before she had it in her grasp it was taken out of her reach.

"I don't want your slobber all over my flute," Shego explained to her child as she placed the flute on the nightstand next to the bed. "It ruins the sound."

Athena scowled at her mother, but quickly sought out another target for her attention. She knew better than to try and get her mother to give her the flute. No amount of crying would give her a chance to play with the object she considered a toy. She recognized the leather belt her mother always wore and quickly set out to chew on that instead.

"When are you going to teach her to play?" Kim asked, knowing that if their child was going to learn how to play an instrument it wouldn't be from her. She had given up on trying to relearn the clarinet and didn't particularly feel the need to try and learn how to play something else.

"I'll teach her when she appreciates it," Shego replied as she watched their daughter play with Kim's leather belt. "You're not helping by still calling it a 'shiny piece of wood'."

"But I do know what it means," Kim laid her head down on Shego's shoulder, letting her eyes roam over their daughter, still surprised that they even had her, and even more surprised that she and Shego were parents, competent parents. "I know what it means to you, to us."

Shego nodded once. "Do you think Animatus knows?"

"I think he knows," Kim wrapped an arm around Shego's stomach, "but I don't think he understands. He doesn't know how to understand."

Deciding that the leather was no longer interesting, Athena crawled over to her parents and forced herself between them. She was only a few months old, but she was the size of a toddler with advanced cognitive abilities. She wasn't a normal child, but neither of her parents assumed that she would be. A child born from two female parents and created by a machine was bound to be abnormal.

Every month, Animatus would take Athena away to run tests, refusing Kim and Shego the privilege of accompanying their daughter. They had tried to fight the robots that took her, but had failed in keeping their daughter from Animatus. It had been a long fight that enlightened them to how powerful they had actually become. They had destroyed many of Animatus's robots and had even—for only a brief moment—felt hope that they might actually be able to beat Animatus's mindless drones, but the hope swiftly died when Animatus threatened to use the chip he had implanted into Athena and kill her without chance of reanimation.

This was yet another reminder that Animatus was, as always, the one with the ultimate power. He had power over life and had no inhibition in using it. Killing Athena would mean very little to him, despite her being a child that survived despite even his own predictions that she would perish.

Kim and Shego had seriously contemplated whether or not it would be better for Athena to not live in the world they inhabited. They debated whether it would be better for Athena to die than to experience was it was Animatus chose to put their little girl through, but their own selfishness prohibited them from making the decision they thought they should make. Given time, they believed they could escape and neither wanted to get out knowing that they could have brought their daughter along with them.

"Mama, 'tory," Athena softly demanded as she closed her eyes and snuggled up against Shego's warm body.

"What story?" Shego asked her daughter.

"'inter," Athena replied as she rubbed at her eyes.

"Winter?" Shego clarified.

Athena weakly nodded.

"Okay," Shego made herself more comfortable and glanced over at her lover who had snuggled into the covers eagerly awaiting the story their daughter had requested. She smiled softly at Kim, and then took a deep breath in preparation for her story. "A long, long time ago it used to always be dark and there was always summer, always hot," Shego began. "Then one day Coyote and Eagle went hunting, but Coyote was a really bad hunter because it was so dark and he couldn't see. So, Eagle and Coyote went to the Kachinas a very powerful people who kept the Sun and the Moon in a box."

"Steal boks," Athena interrupted.

"That's right," Shego nodded, "Eagle and Coyote waited for the Kachinas to go to sleep and then they stole the box. Eagle carried it away, but Coyote talked Eagle into letting him carry it. So, Eagle gave the box to Coyote and always curious, the Coyote opened the box and the Sun and the Moon escaped, and flew up to the sky. Then, the Sun lit up the land, and the Sun and Moon took away it always being summer. That's why we have winter now."

Athena yawned widely. "Mama 'n Mommy are mun and sun."

"We are," Kim spoke up. "One day we're going to escape the box and fly up to the sky, and we're going to take our curious little coyote with us."

"Is good." Athena yawned once more, and then snuggled in against Shego a little more. Within moments she was sound asleep.


	7. The Escaped

**Disclaimers: I don't own Kim Possible. Also, please keep in mind that there is (M)ature content herein. This includes violence, explicit language and sexual content. **

**The Escaped**

Even though she had been sucked into a circumstance she could have never imagined, Shego had stoically held onto her honor while always remembering that honor and morality never did quite intersect in her mind. She stuck to what she expected of herself and never really cared about the expectations others would foolishly mark her with. More than one person had to face up to the fact that everything they thought they knew about Shego was wrong.

Shego had promised to release her family from Animatus's world. That is what she expected of herself. So, it was in error for the community to think that she even thought about releasing them as well. Shego had never promised them their freedom. She owed them nothing. It had been she and Kim who had kept everyone alive for the last few years. It was their blood that had been spilt, their individuality violated. They had brought order and consistency to the rest of Animatus's subjects.

So as Animatus's robots flooded into the community to control the riot Shego had instigated, she owed her compatriots nothing, not even her thanks. She grabbed onto her family and felt no remorse in hearing the terrified screams behind her, and made sure to grab onto Kim with enough strength so that her lover couldn't take a look back either. She understood that Kim might still have that heroic impulse to save as many people as she could, and refused to let that impulse ruin their opportunity to escape Animatus's world.

"Your actions are ill advised," Animatus voice called out to them. "Unless you turn back immediately the entire community will suffer."

"You always sacrifice the pawns to save the queen," Shego calmly replied.

"I will terminate your life," Animatus warned. "Do not test me."

"Try it!" Shego lit up her hands, more than ready to deal with the robots that had finally managed to catch up with her family, completely unconcerned with Animatus's threats. Animatus's chips had been taken care of. The burn marks on her, Kim's, and Athena's wrists were testament to that. Shego had fried them all while they were still buried under the surface of their skin. "You've made us too powerful, Ani," Shego couldn't help but add as she tore a hole through one of the robots.

"Shego!" Kim disposed of one of the robots as well as she held protectively onto their daughter, calling a warning out to her lover as one of the robots attempted to cut off Shego's head.

"You've destroyed the chips," Animatus's voice coolly commented. "This was unforeseen."

Suddenly, the robots stopped their attack and became the lifeless pieces of metal that they were made of. The door Kim had moved to, intent on breaking down with her fists, hissed open. Everything was calm again, quickly becoming like any other time Kim and Shego walked down Animatus's halls.

Shego grabbed onto her lover's hand, then led them through the door. They crossed the threshold into Animatus's labs, entering into the same room they had woken up in all those short years ago. Animatus hadn't changed anything.

"I outgrew my creator as well," Animatus spoke softly. "She could no longer control my programming."

Another door hissed opened, revealing a room neither Kim nor Shego had ever been invited into before. Together, they stepped through that door as well, surprised to see several dozen screens displaying their faces. On one screen it looked like they were having some sort of verbal altercation. On another, they were fighting off Animatus's robots, and on another they were sitting down at a table sharing a meal with a group of people neither of them recognized.

"Are these our clones?" Shego asked.

"You are the clones; series five." Animatus easily admitted. "The originals are on the far left screen, unaware that they exist in my world at all."

Both Shego and Kim carefully looked at the screen Animatus had pointed out to them. They noticed that the Kim and Shego shown were more physically like they had been when they first awoke in Animatus's world. They were sleeping in separate beds, and they didn't look particularly strong or healthy. They were average and plain, and almost sickeningly normal.

"Are we free to go, then?" Shego asked, knowing that despite what Animatus had revealed, she still had promised to release her family. That only consisted of the Kim who stood next to her and the child that was held within her lover's arms.

Yet another door opened for them. "You have earned your freedom."

"We have to," Kim started to say but was quickly interrupted by Shego's stronger voice.

"No!" She yelled. "We owe them nothing."

Kim looked down at Athena, who had known to keep her silence while her parents rushed her out of the only home she had ever known. It didn't take long for Kim to recognize the decision she had chosen to make the minute she agreed to sacrifice the community members just so that they could escape. She had already chosen to put her family's lives above all others. She had already rated them as more important than any one else, and that included even their own original selves.

"What will you do with them?" Kim held Athena closer to her body, a part of her hoping that her child wouldn't remember the choice she had just made.

"The tests will continue." Animatus answered. "I have not learned what I desire."

"Yeah?" Shego snorted derisively. "I'm not so sure that we've learned it either." She turned to Kim and motioned towards the open door. "Let's get out of here."

The door led to an elevator that swiftly took them back to the surface. When the doors slid open, Kim and Shego were greeted by the smell of sweat and chlorine. They were in a gym, right next to the pool.

**One Month Later**

Kim straightened out her clothes, still unused to the fit of the clothes she had bought during her shopping trip with Shego. Shego had promised her that she looked good in the them, but she didn't feel completely comfortable. Animatus had chosen their clothes for them, and she almost preferred that over having to choose her own wardrobe. At least in Animatus's world she didn't have to worry about her clothes looking bad on her.

With a quick sigh and a timid roll of her shoulders, Kim lifted up her hand and knocked on the door she could remember walking through countless times before. She could even remember when the door was destroyed when one of her enemies had followed her back to her home. The memories were so vivid, even though they weren't technically hers.

"Kimberly?" The woman who answered the door stuttered out the name, clearly shaken from image standing in front of her.

"Hello, Mom." Kim nervously cleared her throat. "I um…I think I need to tell you something."

**The End**

**Author's Note: **A little anti-climatic maybe? Well, I think so, but I have my reasoning for it-- Sequel.


End file.
